------------"That's One For The Refrigerator"------------
Story by R. O. Knight
based on the hit television show "NCIS"
Created by Donald P. Bellisario
Paige skipped through the front door of the Gibbs house with a big smile on her face, and Chloe and Gibbs followed close behind.
"Mommy! Mommy!" Paige shouted as she skipped through the house in search of her mother.
"In here sweetheart!" Abby called from the kitchen.
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Paige entered the kitchen where Abby had just finished putting up the last of the few groceries that she had picked up on the way home from work.
They had managed to wrap up the case that they had been working on early so Director Vance had decided to let eveyone go home early.
Abby was wearing her usual mini skirt, platform shoes, dog collar, black lipstick, etc. as was her custom. Abby and Gibbs had found that when they were out in public together, people had a tendency to stare at them--they knew that as a couple they must look weird to most folks--and they had learned to just laugh whenever they did notice someone staring at them.
Gibbs and Chloe entered the kitchen shortly after Paige did.
"I see you beat us home." Gibbs said, with that trademark grin of his.
"Pretty good, hunh?" Abby replied, with a playful grin.
"I'll say." Gibbs said, as he leaned in for a kiss.
"Mommy." Paige said, trying to get her mother's attention once again.
"What is it sweetheart?" Abby asked, as she looked down at her youngest daughter, who now stood in between her and Gibbs.
"Look." Paige said, as she held up her picture that she had drawn at school that day.
Abby's eyes, somehow, landed on Paige's knee instead of the drawing in her hand.
"What happened to your knee?" Abby asked, as she stooped down to examine her daughter's band-aid covered knee.
"School nurse said she scraped it up pretty good." Gibbs said, as he stuffed his hands into his trouser pockets.
"How?" Abby asked, a worried tinge to her voice, as she picked her daughter up and sat her down on the kitchen counter.
"Mommy." Paige groaned, not impressed with her mother's lack of focus, on the real issue at hand--her drawing that she had done in class.
"Danny Wittle happened." Chloe said, as she retrieved two juice boxes from the refrigerator.
Gibbs chuckled at his oldest daughter.
Abby peeled back the bandage on Paige's knee to inspect the damage.
"Goodness Gracious." Abby said, with a horrified gasp.
On the small kitchen/breakfast table nearby Chloe prepared the two juice boxes, inserting the straws into them with sufficient force to pierce their perforated holes.
"Hold still hon, and let mommy put some medicine and a fresh band-aid on your knee." Abby said, as she reached over and opened the corner drawer just to her left to pull out the supplies that she would need to temporarily play doctor.
"I hope that little monster got in so much trouble for this-" Abby started to say, angrily.
"Not exactly." Gibbs said, from behind his wife.
"But, it seems that our eldest child is quite the fighter." Gibbs added, with a grin.
"Oh, so you know about it then?" Abby asked, nervously, without looking away from her task of doctoring up her daughter's knee.
"I wanted to tell you, but Chloe asked me not to say anything to you." Abby explained.
"I know." Gibbs replied. "We've talked about it."
Chloe walked over to the where her mother and Paige were--her dad tousled her hair, which she had let down out of its pigtails earlier after Danny Wittle had sent one of his goons for payback and all that that had accomplished was that she had ended up losing one of her ribbons/bands that she used to tie her hair up with, as she walked by. Chloe handed Paige one of the juice boxes.
Paige took the juice box, and thanked her big sister just before she put her lips to the straw and sucked in a big sip of apple juice from the carton.
"Chloe, sweetheart, why don't you run and drop you and your sister's backpacks in your room real quickly?" Gibbs said to his oldest daughter, as he ran a hand through his silver-gray hair.
"Okay." Chloe said, with a smile, as she picked up Paige's backpack which her little sister had dropped onto the floor by the breakfast table when she came into the kitchen.
Gibbs watched as Chloe left the kitchen, and headed towards the bedroom that she and Paige shared.
Abby gently rubbed a little bit of some Neosporin anti-bacterial gel/cream on Paige's scraped up knee, and then after she applied that she reached back into the drawer to her left and pulled out a box of assorted band-aids.
Abby looked into the box of band-aids and after a second or two she pulled one out of the box and held it up.
"How about one with ponies on it?" Abby asked her daughter, with a playful, knowing grin.
The five year old just kind of rolled her eyes with a grin, and a slight sigh, as her mother unwrapped the "My Little Pony" band-aid and pressed it gently over the scrapped up area of her knee.
"Mommy." Paige tried, yet again, to get her mother's attention back to where SHE wanted it to be in the first place.
"What is it sweetie?' Abby asked, as she looked up from her doctoring job on her daughter's knee.
"Look." Paige insisted, as she held up her drawing in front of her face so that her mother could finally look at it.
Abby's eyes landed on the color/crayon drawing in her daughter's hands. At first glance, Abby thought to herself "Well when it comes to drawing/coloring Paige sure seems to, at least at this point in her life, have at least some talent."
The picture was of their schoolyard playground on a bright, sunny day. It also showed several cute little stick figures in it as well. The stick figures were separated into two groups. One group, of three stick figures, was off to a far side of the drawing--to Abby they looked like they might be a group of boys; and the other group, a group of two girls it looked like (one slightly taller than the other with what appeared to be pigtails), Abby guessed that it must be Paige's representation of herself (meaning Paige) and Chloe--holding hands on the playground.
Right above the figure that was Chloe, Abby found that Paige had written: "Bestest Big Sister In The Whole World."
Abby smiled a warm smile, as she pulled, gently, the drawing down away from her daughter's face, and laid it down behind her on the breakfast table.
"So, what'dya think?" Paige asked, with a big smile.
"I think it's wonderful hon." Abby said, with a smile, as she hugged her youngest daughter. "I think we should put this one...on the refrigerator."
Behind them, Gibbs grinned at his wife and youngest daughter.
------------To Be Continued in "The Big Picnic Surprise"------------
Author's Chapter Notes:
Aftermath of the events that took place at school...
Chapter End Notes:
This is Chapter 3 of the series "Sisters Forever". Enjoy and God Bless!!!!